Session 2 Summary

Planning

We join the heroes as they lounge about in their new home: a dirty old warehouse. Arctus sat down on a wooden box while the shady man sulked in a corner.

Qirk approached him and asked, "So what is your name, anyway?"

The shady man answered, "I don't share that with just anyone. Why should I tell you?"

"Because I asked. If we are going to be hanging around, I think it's generally expected that we know each other's names."

"Fine. My name is Wort."

Satisfied, Qirk found an old broom and began sweeping an area of the floor. Bertis found an old metal barrel and started a fire in it, just like the homeless people the heroes are. And Hale pushed some junk in font of the doors to barricade them.

After working for a bit, Wort approached the heroes and said, "You know what we really need? Money. No one can start any kind of proper uprising without lots of money. We can raid a gang lair and get some fast cash." The heroes thought it over and agreed it was necessary.

Arctus reminded the heroes, "Let us not forget that an accumulator would make this place a lot more secure and liveable." The heroes weighed the options and decided to go after the money. Arctus muttered, "You kids and your money."

The Lair

The party set out and walked several blocks down the streets of Lucan, looking for signs of a gang lair. Qirk suddenly stopped and said, "I think I've found something!"

Bertis, also in a moment of misfortune, agreed "Yeah, I think this is it."

Hale walked up and said, "This is a stop sign."

After some more searching, Hale and Wort discovered some graffiti pointing towards some cellar doors leading downwards. The heroes descended and arrived at a door with one of those sliding eyeholes. Hale banged on the door and the eyehole slid open and a man looked through it. "Who are you?" Hale replied gruffly but sincerely, "Come out here. I want to do stuff to you."

Confused and annoyed, the man said "Get lost before you get hurt." and shut the eyehole.

One by one, the heroes tried different lies to get inside: Wort attempted to make some sort of gang sign but got laughed at. Qirk attempted to shapeshift into the doorman and convince him that he was his long lost twin brother, but it only freaked him out more. Bertis noticed and asked about the trinket again: "Hey! It's that trinket again. Can I see that?"

"No. It's bonded to me. No one else can see it."

Finally, Bertis walked up to the door and said, "Look, we're just messing with you. We're still in disguise. This is Butch." Unbelievably, the doorman thought for a second and said, "Butch! Man, it's been ages. Get in here. How are things going?"

The heroes walked in and saw another thug sitting in the corner. He squinted at the heroes for a second before saying, "Those are great disguises. Where did you get them?"

Hale did not give Bertis a chance to answer and instead picked up a nearby chair and smashed it to pieces over the thug's head. The doorman, confused beyond repair, shouted "Wait! Are you in disguise, or not!?" The heroes answered by slaying him. Bertis noticed that the doorman was wearing some unusual boots with flames embroidered on the sides and grabbed them. Hale decided to prop one body against the wall and placed the other on top of the remains of the table and chair. Wort sneered, "Nice."

Qirk asked, "So should we keep this disguise thing going?"

Hale answered, "Does this mean I don't get to hurt people?"

"Disguises it is."

Bar-room Fury

The heroes walked down a hall with several doors. Qirk said "First right, go right." and opened the door. The heroes stepped into a bar area, where two very well-dressed gentlemen were playing pool. One of them broke and sank all the balls in one shot, and then glanced over at the heroes. Another man had a handfull of darts, which he threw all at once at a dartboard. All of the darts stuck into the bullseye. One of the pool sharks noticed Hale's spear and asked, "Do you know how to use that thing, or is it just for show?"

Hale answered, "Why don't we take a look?" and stepped up to the table. He lined up a shot, but then intentionally missed, stabbing one of the pool sharks. The shark shouted "Blimey!" and prepared for battle. The heroes were beginning to see a pattern with Hale's interactions with others.

The fight was on, and the pool sharks attacked ferociously with their pool cues. The heroes were suprised at how damaging they were. At one point, one pool shark took a stab at Hale and his pool cue extended momentarily, allowing him to attack from very far away. He then stood next to Hale and said, "'Bout that time, eh chap?" The other one responded, "Righto" and walked over. Both sharks then flew past Hale in an 'x' shape, hurting him badly. Meanwhile, the darts thug let out a roar and threw an unbelievable number of darts at all the heroes in a storm of needles. The other thugs nearby each had a silhouette of darts around them where the darts thug had managed not to throw. However, even with the amazing skills these thugs possessed, the heroes overcame them.
The heroes noticed that even after being stabbed multiple times by Hale, the pool shark's shirt was neither bloodstained, nor torn. Bertis remarked, "That's a nice shirt" and took it. He discovered that it made him more gentlemanly and offered some protection. Meanwhile, Hale remembered the extending pool cue and removed the grip from it. Using his skills as an artificer, Qirk attached it to Hale's spear on the spot, allowing it to extend periodically. The heroes took a brief rest and then headed across the hall into a storage room. They found some gold and food and continued on.

The heroes stepped into a perpendicular hallway and went right again. At the end of the hallway, the heroes saw a bouncer. He glared at the heroes and said, "What do you want?"

Qirk, still disguised as the doorman, walked up and said, "We need to see the boss."

"The boss ain't seein' no one right now."

"There's a deal going down."

"I ain't hear 'bout no deal."

After some more convincing, the bouncer reluctantly let the heroes in to the boss's office. "Boss, some weird guys are here to see ya. They say there's a deal goin' down." The boss rotated his chair around to face the heroes across his desk.

"Who are these guys? There aren't any deals going on right now."

Bertis attempted, "Take it easy. It's me, Butch." The boss was not fooled.

"Butch doesn't come here anymore, and you're not Butch. In fact, I don't think you belong here at all."

The boss then grabbed a huge flail and swung it downward into the ground. The heroes, despite being at least 20 feet away, were knocked to their backs and couldn't believe how far away the flail worked from. Arctus moved to engage the bouncer, but the bouncer had some sort of powered glove on and punched Arctus so hard that he flew back against the wall. The boss continued swinging his flail around at the heroes and into the ground again, taking Qirk down. However, the heroes were too much for one man and killed the boss. The bouncer, seeing this, exclaimed a profanity and bolted out the door.

An Acquaintance

The heroes looted the room, stealing all of the boss's possessions - even his chair. The heroes used his key to unlock a safe in the room and collected an enormous sum of gold.
After exploring the rest of the gang lair, the heroes found a drug lab. Qirk took the lab equipment for his own use and Bertis took the drugs for his own use. Finally, the heroes found a room that was being used as a prison. There were three captives present - two of them were ordinary lower level citizens, but one looked remarkable. Upon seeing Wort, the man exclaimed, "Wort! Long time no see!"

Wort, disgusted, said "Ugh. I don't think we should free this one."

Hale joked, "Anyone who doesn't like Wort is definitely going to be released."

After releasing the man, he gathered up his gear and thanked Hale: "Thanks. I feel like I've seen you before. Like, in a past life or something." Hale tried to remember, but could not come up with anything. The man said, "Oh well. Perhaps it's nothing. My name is Karne. Pleased to make your acquaintence." He then swaggered over to the other heroes and introduced himself. The heroes were very surprised at the intricate swagger that Karne walked with. It was quite impressive. After seeing the swagger and hearing the name Karne, something triggered in Hale's memory and it seemed that perhaps he had run into Karne some time in the distant past.
Karne then walked into the other room and said, "Wort, what's wrong? It's me, Karne!"

Wort angrily replied, "I know. I don't see why they set you free."

Bertis remarked, "So you guys know each other."

Karne answered, "Yes. We go a ways back." Wort was silent. Karne continued, "So, seeing as I am now in your debt, I'd like to hang around for a bit and give you guys a hand." The heroes agreed and recruited a new party member. With six people, the heroes became a legitimate posse.

Arctus warned, "We need to get out of this place. That thug will surely tell others."

The heroes GTHO of the lair and returned to the warehouse. Upon returning, Hale questioned Karne: "So how do you know Wort?"

Karne answered without hesitation, "He and I used to be in a group of... associates that provided some services."

"I see. So what happened to that?"

"One guy got a big head and decided that he wanted to run the show. That guy was the boss of that lair you guys raided. That's also why I was locked up in there."

"So that means that Wort also knew the boss."

"Yeah. He didn't tell you that? How do you think he knew where to go? He definitely had a personal stake in that raid."

"Interesting."

Karne then approached Bertis and asked about Qirk: "How does that guy shapeshift like that?"

Bertis answered, "He says he has some kind of trinket that he uses." Bertis then maliciously added, "Why don't you go ask him about it?"

"I want to, but I don't want to piss him off."

"It'll be fine."

Karne approached Qirk and said, "So, I was wondering about how you shapeshifted like that-"

Karne put his hands up and said, "Okay, sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. Jeez." He then walked back to Bertis and said, "Thanks a lot, man. I told you I didn't want to piss him off."

Bertis responded, "Yeah, he's weird like that."

At this point, Arctus mentioned his plan again: "You know, this place would be a lot more liveable with an accumulator to power it."

Bertis, still in a diabolical mood, jumped in: "Wort wants to spend our new cash at a girlie bar."

Arctus responded in shock "What?! This is inexcusable."

"Oh, sorry man. I didn't realize he hadn't invited you. I see why you're pissed. Look, just forget I said anything, okay?"

Arctus shouted, "We'll see about that!" and stomped over to Wort. Amidst the yelling, Wort could be heard saying, "What did I do?!"

Some time later, the heroes decided it was time to actually do some work again and spoke to Arctus about the accumulator. Arctus, still exasperated from Bertis's previous instigation, said, "For the last time, we need an accumulator to power this place. Right now we are living in a metal box without light."

Bertis exclaimed, "You're right! We need one to keep all this alcohol cold."

Arctus glared back and asked, "What is wrong with you?" "Moving on," Arctus continued: "We need to ask Wort where this abandoned factory is. Someone other than me should probably ask him." The heroes found Wort sulking once again, and after some convincing, decided it was time to head out to the abandoned factory.
However, Wort warned that this trip would require stealth, as seeing a group of people moving an accumulator down the street would certainly attract attention. After thinking it over, the heroes decided to take Wort and Karne and leave Arctus behind, as the old man was not known for subtlety. However, the heroes showed a distinct lack of judgment and brought Hale, who had become somewhat of a combat catalyst.

Some Disassembly Required

The heroes walked down the streets and saw some people about, but nothing too major. After walking several blocks, Wort stopped and said, "I think this is it." The factory was falling apart and looked abandoned. The heroes walked and and saw the accumulator humming away in the corner.

Hale raised a question: "Why hasn't anyone else grabbed this thing yet?" Qirk remembered hearing that accumulators would overload if they were disconnected from devices drawing power from them. If the devices required enough power, the accumulator could even explode. The heroes looked around and saw several large industrial mechines hooked up - not a good idea to risk diconnecting the accumulator without deactivating them first. The heroes saw some sort of mill, a conveyor belt, a furnace, a waste disposal chute, and a control panel. Qirk began to mess with the controls, pressing each button. He heard a grinding sound from the mill and some pieces of some kind of item came out onto the conveyor belt. Bertis noticed that the pieces looked like they used to be a magic item and got pissed. However, Qirk grabbed the pieces and decided to attempt to repair it later on. Qirk continued messing around with the controls and was able to turn off all of the devices except for the furnace.
Bertis found some junk laying around and threw it into the mill. He then ran the entire sequence: the mill chopped up the junk, the conveyor belt carried it into the furnace, the furnace incinerated it into ashes, and emptied it into the waste disposal chute. The heroes now understood how the machines worked, but could not figure out how to turn off the furnace. Karne said, "There must be some sort of override built into it somewhere." The heroes searched all over the furnace but could not locate a panel. Bertis grew bored and began to throw more and more junk into the mill. He also closed the disposal chute and the ashes started to back up into the furnace. The furnace became clogged with junk and ashes and began to get very hot. The heroes felt the immense heat and Wort shouted, "It's gonna blow!" The heroes ran out of the factory, but did not hear an explosion. Instead, they heard the furnace shut off. Wort said, "So there was a thermal override built in to it."

Karne glanced at Bertis and chuckled, "Nice work, although I get the feeling you were screwing around."

The heroes turned off the remaining devices and Qirk successfully detached them from the accumulator. Hale found an old cart and the heroes hoisted the accumulator onto it and draped an old blanket over it. Even with the cart, the accumulator was still extremely heavy and the heroes decided to try and avoid people on the trip back.

As the heroes awkwardly pushed this giant thing down the road, one man took notice. He stopped and watched, but did not follow. The heroes took note of him and kept moving. A few minutes later, some rough-looking individuals appraoched the heroes and asked, "Whatcha got underneath that blanket?"

Qirk answered, "None of your business."

One of the men replied, "Hey, come on now. We just wanna see what you have there."

Hale, showing distinct impatience, growled, "These are bodies of people that wouldn't leave us alone." The man, shocked, shouted an obscenity and quickly walked away.

Karne asked, "Is he always like this?" At least two people answered, "Yes."

The heroes were confident that they would make it back to base now, but then they noticed that the man who had watched them before was attempting to shadow them. Wort grumbled, "Is he trying to be sneaky? He's doing it wrong." Qirk turned around and walked towards the man.
The man noticed and veered off, crossing the street. Qirk continued to follow him and he walked into a nearby shop. Qirk also entered the shop and it became clear the man was avoiding him. Eventually, Qirk cornered the man and accosted him: "Hey, man. What are you up to?"

"N-nothing. I'm just looking around."

"You look nervous. What's your name?"

The man sputtered, "It's Fonkin Pukethirst! Leave me alone!" The man ran out of the store. Satisfied, Qirk returned to the party and told the others about the strangely-named man. Karne said, "Are you making this up? That's the worst name I've ever heard in my life." The others agreed and made it back to base. Somehow, Hale had managed to push the accumulator all the way without taking a break. The heroes hoooked the device up and powered the few lights that remained in the warehouse. Hale also hooked the accumulator up to electrify the doors. At one point, Karne walked up to Qirk and asked, "We cool?" in reference to the earlier rejection.

Qirk, suspicious as ever, replied, "Not yet." With the base finally starting to take shape, the heroes can now move on to bigger things.